


Gone

by BrightBlackLight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-23 21:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20222203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightBlackLight/pseuds/BrightBlackLight
Summary: Basically a summary of Steve and Natasha's relationship and how it builds up through years they've know each other. Lots of sad. Bits of fluff.





	Gone

**Author's Note:**

> So this was supposed to be published after Endgame came out. Don't ask me how it got delayed until now. Also if the black widow is set after civil war then I don't know how much time that would take. I'm just gonna assume around two weeks? Hopefully I'm not too far off.
> 
> Any mistakes are all mine and I apologise for them. 
> 
> I do not own the characters.

He first meets her on the SHIELD helicarrier, thousands of feet in the skies. He remembers the red shirt and black jacket she wears, remembers the smile she give him as she said hi.

Natasha is a spy who does not question orders and did as she is told. Steve regards her as an ally, and she him. They do not expect to be in contact for any longer than necessary. 

Then Loki happens. In Germany and then New York. Natasha fights by his side against the Chitauri. Hell, she is easy to work with. She is a good person and wants to save the world, he thinks. He is surprised when she jumps off his shield and climbs onto that flying Chitauri vehicle. 

And after they win. Stark sends the nuke right up into the heart of the Chitauri mothership. They save the world and go their separate ways.

They win. 

Steve lays low. A quiet life. Resting and learning the ways of this strange new century. He exchanges some conversations with Romanoff over text. She is amusing, he thinks. 

He gets paired with her during a mission at sea. She tries to find him a date. 

Natasha is a spy, he supposes. She slips through his fingers and completes her own task behind his back. Fury’s orders. Half of the trust she built comes crashing down. 

In a state of frustration, he confronts Fury. The man shows him project insight. It was scary, to know that humans could build something that was so much more powerful than them, that could destroy them in the blink of an eye.

A few days later Steve goes back to his apartment and there he is. Fury. Sitting on his couch. He looks beaten, tired. Then a bang and he is on the floor, wheezing and saying-

“Don’t… trust… anyone.” Steve takes the flash drive and runs after the assassin. The assassin, with a black mask and a silver arm, hurls his shield back at Steve and jumps out of sight.

He goes to the hospital and Fury dies. He tries to comfort a person he barely knows. “You’re a terrible liar,” She tells him. He sighs and hides the flash drive in the vending machine.

After Pierce interrogates him, Steve goes back to the hospital. The flash drive is gone. The spy appears right behind him. He pins her against a wall to make sure she doesn’t slip away. It is only two seconds after he does it that Steve knows it’s a bad idea, but he pulls through it anyways. She tells him about the Winter Soldier.

They go to a mall to find out what is on the flash drive, narrowly escaping shield agents. Natasha kisses him on the escalator. She keeps finding ways to surprise him.

“Who do you want me to be?” The sun shines on her hair, her eyes. She looks so innocent, so pure. 

He replies, “How ‘bout a friend?” 

She smiles a little. “There’s chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers.”

He picks her up from the rubble and sets off for Sam’s house. Steve barely knew the guy, but he had a feeling Sam was a good man.

She sits in the guest room, looking betrayed and sad. She says she owes him. Steve tells her no. “…Would you trust me to do it?” She asks. Sincerely, seriously. No mask of the spy, but a genuine Natasha Romanoff. 

He does not hesitate to say, “I would now. And I’m always honest.” The look on her face. She was so relieved. She was a spy, after all. She did not expect anyone to trust her.

They discuss Hydra and retrieve Sam’s wings. After kicking Sitwell off the roof, she tries again to find him a date. 

They are in Sam’s car. She climbs shamelessly onto his legs and saves him and Sam both from a bullet. They find out that his best friend Bucky is the Winter Soldier.

The bullet that hits Natasha terrifies him more than he thinks was possible

The next day the mission goes to plan. Hydra’s files are released. They win again. Natasha cleans up most of the mess they leave behind. She loses her secrets, her covers. She gives him a start for tracking down Bucky. She smiles at him sadly and kisses him on the cheek. A goodbye kiss. 

They win.

She still tries to find him a date.

She leaves and goes under. Steve thinks he could have peace for a good while, then a year later Loki’s sceptre is located. The avengers are called and they all come back, Natasha included. They find the sceptre and also a pair of enhanced twins.

The party happened. And the robot. Ultron. Tony and Bruce’s good work. They go to south Africa and then to Clint’s secret safehouse and family, lost and defeated. 

After an encounter with Ultron, they lose Natasha. Steve did not allow himself to think too much, because he knows he would be distracted from their mission if he dwelled too deeply. She is a good friend now; their relationship had deepened the past three years, day after day, bit by bit.

What happens next is a whirlwind of chaos. The creation of an android; Vision. Sokovia, with dust, metal, greyness, blood, rubble, debris and all its other greatness. Their encounter with Ultron and his army. 

He stands on the pile of rock with Natasha by his side. “There’s worse ways to go,” She says. She looks so tired, so defeated. He turns and looks at her. Everything crashed down around them, she kept going. 

There is no way out of that one, he thinks. Then Fury shows up with the Helicarrier. The citizens are evacuated, Ultron is destroyed, Stark blows the city up. They lose Wanda’s twin. They lose Pietro, but they win.

They win.

Thor goes off to find infinity stones, Tony tries to find a peaceful life, Clint retires, Bruce is off-grid. She is broken by Bruce’s disappearance, but she stays. Natasha stays and helps him train the new avengers. It was just them two who kept going.

Barely a year later, the government stirs up peace issues and the accords. Half the avengers sign it, half do not. After the explosion in Vienna, he needs to see with his own eyes that Natasha is alive. She warns him to keep out, but he goes after Bucky anyway. After the pandemonium in Bucharest, him, Sam, Bucky are captured by the police force. 

He is heartbroken at her reaction. “Technically it’s the government’s property.” She says. He screams silently. Help me. Help, please! This was not the Natasha he knew, but he trusts her to make her own decisions, especially after he got a glimpse of her past; the snippets of stories she told him when they were at the compound. She deserves to make her own choices. 

Then Bucky escapes. He grabs onto the helicopter. They both go under the water. He and Sam take Bucky to an abandoned facility. Bucky tells him about the other five winter soldiers. Steve knows they can’t get help from Tony anymore. Or Rhodey. Or Vision.

Or Natasha.

They have learned to communicate without words these past few months. A glance from her green eyes tells him everything words can. 

He forms his own team. Natasha gives him one last warning before they fight, her eyes pleading. She was so desperate to keep them together, to stop her only family from tearing in half. He could see how much it affected her. It broke his heart. But he is Captain America. He fights for what he believes. And it is for his best friend.

They try to get out of the airport to go to Russia. His team distract Stark while Steve and Bucky escape. Natasha stops them. He completely freezes. He would not fight her. Not here. Not under these circumstances. She raises her arm to fire a widow’s bite. He braces himself. Please Nat, he thinks. Then he turns in surprise as her bite hits T’Challa instead. A breath of relief escapes him. Steve nods at Natasha. Thank you.

His friends will all be punished. Natasha included. He couldn’t think about that yet, but he’ll deal with it later. Later.

They go to the old compound Bucky was kept in, only to find all winter soldiers dead. This was all the doctor, Zemo’s, work. Stark shows up. He sees the footage. 

Another friend he failed. 

Another friend he betrayed. 

Another friend he broke. 

Tony rages. They fight. The last of the Avengers’ bond breaks. As Steve shatters Tony’s reactor, his heart does the same. Again. 

“You don’t deserve that shield.” He calls after him, taunting and full of hatred. “My father made that shield!”

Steve drops the shiny vibranium symbol on the cold floor. Captain America dies in that room.

This time, they all lose.

Steve calls Natasha for help getting his friends, now prisoners, out of the raft. She is stuck under Everet Ross’s interrogation back in Germany. After everything that she lost, she still agrees to help him. Clint retires once again, hopefully for real this time. Scott goes home, on house arrest. Wanda and Vision go away together.

Seeing they were fine, Steve goes to Wakanda. Bucky is frozen. He trusts T’Challa to do help his best friend. 

“What’s next?” Sam asks as they fly out of the magnificent country on the jet.

They are fugitives now. Criminals. They lay low. Two week later Natasha contacts them. Steve was happy to see her alive, unharmed. She has blonde hair now, eyes hard and hollow, tired, but smiling.

Steve looks back and forth at his two friends. They would follow him anywhere. He was a nomad now, but they still trust him, are loyal to him. 

“We still fight.” He says.

So they do. Starting from Parkhar, they move from city after city, country after country, hotel from hotel. Never staying in the same location for more than a few weeks. They track down crime lords and weapon dealers, destroying illegal Chitauri weapons and taking down drug empires. 

He completely trusts Sam now, and grows even closer to Natasha. 16th August 2016, Houston, he watches her shield a fourteen-year-old girl from a criminal who opened fire right in the middle of the street. She takes a bullet to the shoulder blade. She did not complain and ran with Steve and Sam to disappear before the police showed up. Any walls they had from each other tumbled down. That night she told him all her darkest secrets as tears flowed freely down her face. She seemed stronger the next day, like having a weight lifted off her shoulders. Autumn turns to winter and Sam’s birthday. They have a quiet celebration in a motel somewhere in Kansas City. A week later and it’s Christmas. They shouldn’t have, but they go to the rural countryside of Missouri, to Clint Barton’s safehouse. It was a reliving break, a peaceful reunion after months of running and fighting. A day later, Wanda and Vision come as well, happy and healthy. They leave a day after new year when Laura overhears some careless police officers discussing if it is Captain America’s face on the security footage.

They go to Europe.

They work their way down south. London, Amsterdam, Milan. The evil never stops. Steve never stops being grateful for his two friends, fighting by his side. Natasha, he thinks as he punches a mercenary in the throat and throws him into the Naviglio Grande, was a good person through and through. She might think she was a heartless assassin, but underneath all the webs and covers, there it is. A pure, pure heart. She has been through hell and back with him. He turns. “Natasha!” he screams over the sound of gunfire. 

“What?” she screams back, wrestling a man to the floor, grimacing.

“Thank you,” he smiles. She looks at him incredulously before warning “Heads!” and he has to duck and tackle another mercenary.

Winter, spring, summer, autumn, winter. They go to Spain, Italy, Austria. They fight together. They are a tight-bound team. They are family. They have their hard times, but they stick together, they help each other. Months pass. Another Christmas. Another year. Steve begins to think the running will never end. The fear of losing his friends keeps him up at night. Around two weeks into April 2018, they get a call from Bruce. Steve remembers the look on Natasha’s face as he answers it. They are relieved to hear from a fellow avenger after all these years.

It is a distress call. He warns them about Thanos the Mad Titan. He tells them about the stone in Vision’s forehead. Fifteen minutes later Natasha comes up with the coordinates of Vision’s whereabouts. The leave their sad motel in Albania and head for Scotland.

Natasha looks content on the jet. She wants to see her family. She knows they will reunite with the rest of the Avengers, and she’s happy.

They arrive in the cold, wet city of Edinburgh and save Wanda and Vision. Steve is hesitant, but he knows they have to go back to the Avengers compound. She catches his eyes. It’s going to be okay, they say. 

Tony is not there. They reunite with Rhodey and Bruce. Steve could not bring himself to smile at him, not after all the sadness he caused for his friend. Noticing Steve’s stiff posture, Sam whispers, this is awkward. Steve almost snorts.

They discuss Thanos’s plan to retrieve all the stones. After Wanda refuses to destroy vision, Bruce suggests that they could remove the stone instead. 

They go to Wakanda. 

Steve is relieved to see Bucky. They head up to one of the palace’s bright, sun-filled chambers where T’Challa’s sister examines vision. “Something’s under the atmosphere,” The Dora Milaje general, Okoye, hissed.

They load transport after transport of Wakandan warriors onto the green plain. He waits tensely as strange enemy spaceships land outside the blue protective shield around Wakanda. Natasha’s face is blank beside him. He can’t tell if she’s scared or pissed. The back of his hand brushes hers. It’s going to be okay, he repeats her words. 

The battle with aliens comes and goes. The memory is a flash of mud and screaming. Thor arrives with friends. Steve can’t help but wonder where Tony is. He didn’t even know if the man was still alive. Somehow Vision is dragged into the field, and Thanos arrives. He is truly the kind of creature that comes out of a nightmare. They have one last stand against the Mad Titan. Steve knows he fails as Thanos’s fist connects with his face, the vibration thrumming to the tips of his toes as he falls into the dust. The next thing he knows he is sitting beside Vision’s body. Bucky is gone. Sam is gone. Wanda, T’Challa, Groot. 

“Oh, God.”

How absurd that half of the population loses their lives, he is the other half.

They lose again.

Survivors are gathered up. The remaining Avengers stay the night and leave for the compound the next day.

The aftermath of what happened is still a shock after a week. There is so much to clean up. Everything is chaos. Natasha stays by his side and helps him. She is strong – a leader through and through. By now Steve feels like she is another part of him. Inseparable. He is so used to standing by her side, and catching her eye from time to time for approval and comfort. 

Fury left them a strange communication device. It breakes down after three weeks, and a person came with it. 

Carol Danvers.

She locates Tony in space and carries him back to the compound.

Home.

Liar. Natasha tenses. The word Tony spits at him is a knife to the heart. She then flinches as he passes out.

“Where are you going?” Steve asks Carol, who turns and walks out of the room.

“To kill Thanos.” 

He exchanges glances with Natasha. Questions, conformation, ideas. Only they can understand each other.

Steve tells Carol that it is their fight too. So they go to the Garden. 

They find out that Thanos had destroyed the stones. He could feel Natasha’s hope crumbling as she asks quietly, “Where are the stones.” Any chance of reversing what he had done, was gone. Their friends weren’t coming back. 

This could not be fixed.

Thor takes off the Mad Titan’s head with a neat slice, sending purple blood spraying. Natasha closes her eyes and a tear runs down her blood-spattered face.

They return to the compound. Natasha doesn’t say a word but listens as the Avengers scrape out the bottom of their brains for any, any other solutions.

There aren’t.

Thor disappears first.

Then Tony.

Then Bruce and Nebula and Rocket.

Carol Danvers flies off to help in other places, and Rhodey too. Promising to check in whenever he can.

After another few weeks, the emptiness begins to settle in. Steve moves to his own apartment, coming to the compound every few days. 

Natasha stays again. She holds the facility and takes messages from their fellow Avengers, distress signals, e-mails from the government. She goes on missions with Rhodey to stop whatever evil left in the shattered world.

In their darkest days, Natasha is quiet when he came to visit and, as far as he knew, normally didn’t bother to eat proper food.

When he speaks, she stares at him with dull eyes, the key into her heart, the key he knows how to wield and look into her soul, the only evidence to reveal how battered she is inside.

The only thing he looks forward to was seeing all his friends gather at the compound for birthdays and festivals. It was a pleasure that goes by too quickly. And before he knows it, silence fills his world again. 

Steve sees her dance. The not-so-real life and happiness in her graceful movements. It soothes her, he supposes.

After a few weeks, the unplanned ‘sleepovers’ start. Nights where they spend hours at end talking in the darkness, sharing stories, or simply sitting in silence and enjoying each other’s presence. These nights would sometimes end in tears, not from him. and Steve then holds her in his arms and tell her it was alright. 

After a few months, there is nothing left he can give to comfort her. 

Natasha realises that. The sleepovers happens less and less. It eventually stops.

A year.

He takes fewer trips to the compound, half the times he goes and Natasha wasn’t there, the only sign of life is the worn-out ballet shoes and the stacks of paper in her office, occasionally a punch bag swinging eerily in the gym.

Another year passes. Slowly and surely, it happens.

They grow apart.

He hasn’t seen her for eighteen days.

They are on the fifth year after the snap. Everything is grey and peaceful. 

Is it peaceful?

But there is a difference between quiet and peaceful.

Steve organises a therapy group for anyone who hasn’t moved on. It is painful to listen to their experiences and what they have lost, but he is glad he can help.

He owes Natasha that much.

One day he decides he is way overdue for a visit to the compound, so he goes. The first sight that meets his eyes makes him regret that he didn’t stay with her every day. How many times does the tears spill out of her and she realises she needs someone who wasn’t there for her?

She survives Thanos and the decimation. She survives the physical and mental exhaustion that takes its toll during these five years. And now her best friend is murdering people who does nothing to cause his anger.

“You here to do your laundry?” There is accusation in that smile. The fighting, the betrayals, the protecting, the truths and lies for him, the running for him, the loyalty and trust for him, she tore apart her family with her bare hands for him. It was all for him.

Words exchange through their glances.

You left me. I love you

Really?

You know what I mean.

I know.

You left me.

I’m sorry.

It was all for you

I’m sorry

How have you been?

I should be the one asking you that.

You know what the answer is

I’m sorry.

Me too.

I’m sorry.

“And to see a friend,” he sits down and studies her face.

He tries to cheer her up, but stops as her threat scares him. And the tearstains on her face are not helping.

“. . . and I was better because of it,” Steve never hears anything truer.

“. . . I’m still trying to be better.”

Stop. You’ve given enough

Why are you still doing this?

Why did you stay?

Why are you so good?

At that moment a blue screen pops up on the desk and she swipes her hand through it.

It’s the man from Germany he asked help from. They let him in and, flustered, he tells them about the quantum realm and time travel. Steve’s hopes rise. This is ridiculous, but it can be a chance!

They drive to Tony’s cabin by the woods. He has a daughter now, and even though Tony did technically try to kill him, there was a happy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Tony Stark tells them the plan is ridiculous, Steve begs him to help, but he refuses, and that was that. 

They go to Bruce next. He may not be the right type, but he is still a scientist. He agrees to help them at least try, so they gather at the compound the next day and send Scott back in time. It fails, unsurprisingly. If not a bit amusingly.

Then Steve goes outside and Tony arrives. He presents a newly-made shield. Who’s this for? He almost asks. Then he reveals a time-travelling device that can actually make this plan work.

It’s as if Tony presses the ‘turn tables’ button. Within two days, Rhodey, nebula, rocket, Thor and Clint all come back to the compound. The silence is replaced by jokes and laughter. Steve feels like the family is reunited, if only a part of them. For the first time in a long time, he notices that Natasha is happy. He thinks everyone is. Happy to have a purpose again, and most importantly, happy for a chance to bring everyone back.

After days and days of planning, preparing and testing, the stones are located and a plan is hatched out. The time-heist, they call it. They even get matching uniforms.

The night before, he finds Natasha in the living room, staring out the window and into the starry night.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks.

“Too nervous to try. You?”

“No.”

He sits down beside her and they smile at each other. Her smile is real and excited even if this mission is more dangerous than any other they’ve ever been on.

“Natasha, I- “

She hugs him and squeezes hard. “Thank you.” He isn’t exactly sure why.

“I’m sorry I didn’t find a way before.”

“It’s okay,”

“I’m sorry you had to go through all that, I’m sorry-“

She pulls back and shakes him. “It’s okay, seriously. You know a thousand sorrys won’t change what happened, but we’re here now, and that’s the important thing.”

The next morning the Avengers gather around the time travel platform and Steve wishes them all good luck.

“See you in a minute,” Natasha smiles at him. He smiles back.

I will.

We will.

The mission is successful, apparently.

Wait.

Something is wrong.

Where is Natasha.

The backs of his eyes burn and his heart crumbles as he thinks worst and most obvious case scenario.

“Where’s Nat?” Bruce asks from beside him.

A look at Clint confirms his worst nightmares.

She is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.


End file.
